Ori-o's

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

It's the time for the yearly movie review...
So here goes, my top movies of the year and then some!!

I'll start with the bad and work my way up

The worst movies of the year (in no order, they are all equally bad):

Battleship
Ugggh... really!? It's like taking the worst parts of transformers and making them... worse...
With such a terrible concept to begin with, there wasn't much to build on top of.

Dark Shadows:
Tim Burton made a movie that, other than having one or two visually pretty shots, missed in every category it was aiming at. It was not funny, scary or quirky. The "fish out of water" idea didn't pan out and the story was bad and inconsistent beyond belief.

Total Recall:
Probably one of the worst remakes I have ever seen. It seemed like whoever made this movie decided to take every memorable moment from the original and just skip over it, while still letting the audience know it was on purpose.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance:
Not much I can say about this...just bad everything... Well it did have a cool fiery machine and Nic Cage's over the top acting might seem funny at point... Naaah.. It was bad!

The not as bad movies:

Biggest disappointment-Prometeus:
I had such high hopes for this movie, the "Alien" psudo-prequel, and while the visuals were breathtaking, I was ultimately let down by a hole ridden plot, too much deus ex machina moments and over all lack of vision. It promised to be ground breaking, but over all it didn't achieve it's goal, IMHO.

Most overrated movie-Looper:
Looper has a nice concept, but that's about it. It is not groundbreaking in any way and is actually pretty bland for most of it. The time travel concept is good, but it not well rounded enough and sadly takes a back seat to a run of the mill romance story.

And now for the good:

Best Animated movie-Paranorman :
This
children "horror" movie is mind blowing from a technical point of view.
The stop motion animation is so good it looks like computer generated
imagery, which blows your mind when you realize it's all real, and the
movie itself is pretty good, taking the horror genre into a whole new
direction, with funny jokes, great characters and above all amazing
visuals.

Best Action movie-The Raid: Redemption:
This Awesome Indonesian movie is a roller-coaster ride of blood, bullets, fists and kicks. The action is great and looks so painful and the pacing is crazy, not letting go for a moment.

Most surprising movie-Dredd:
Much like The Raid, Dredd is also a visceral action movie with basically the same premiss. Although here it's just bullets, blood and more bullets. Beautifully shot with some amazing slow motion scenes that look like photographs from a David LaChapelle exhibit and casting Carl Urban as the titular role was a stroke of genius. I hoped it would be a good movie, but never expected it to be THAT good.

Best comedy-Tie -- 21 Jump Street/Ted:
While one had the most laughs in a movie this year (Ted), the other had probably the funniest moment of them all (21JS). 21 Jump St. has brilliant casting, the greatest cameo in any movie this year and one of the funniest scenes I have ever seen. Ted that takes the buddy comedy concept and the rom-com and twists them into a funny, crazy, raunchy monster of a movie with great laughs. tons of references and in jokes and one funny bear.

Here are my top 6 fun movies of the year:

6. The Cabin in the Woods:
Every genre fan's wet dream. A movie that takes the horror concept and flips it on its head, poking fun at itself, the genre and the audience. Great visuals, witty dialogue, scary moments, funny moments, twists and turns... It's all there.

5. The Dark Knight Rises:

Nolan's final part of the Batman trilogy takes batman into his darkest moment and greatest triumph. For me it was Tom Hardy's Bane that made the movie, he was imposing, and yet, very human, even without seeing his face the whole time. The action was great, the scale epic and the supporting cast brilliant. I couldn't ask for a better way to end the series. IMO the pacing was also better than TDK... but that's just me.

4. Argo:
Ben Affleck shows that he is truly a good director. Taking this true story and making it into an edge of your seat thriller. Affleck along with some great performances from John Goodman and Alan Arkin make this movie a must see.

3. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey:
It was so much fun going back to Middle Earth! Peter Jackson brings back all that was good in the LotR movies and leaves all that was bad out, with a fun filled adventure movie. For me, the pacing of the Hobbit was much better than any of the LotR movies and the 2hr 45 min running time didn't feel long at all. The visuals are, as usual, amazing, and the scope, while not as epic as LotR, is still epic enough. Martin Freeman does a great job as Bilbo and Golum steals the show, as usual :)

2. Seven Psychopaths:
This, probably not seen by anyone, movie is probably the best written film I have seen this year. And with Sam Rockwell and Cristopher Walken in it, you also get some amazing performances. This quirky thriller comedy is awesome on so many levels, I can't really describe it, so I'll just say that everything works perfectly here.

1. The Avengers:
Yeah... so...Joss Whedon managed to make the impossible possible and bring together all of the Marvel movies into one, huge, awesome, epic, fun movie. The way the characters work together is what makes this movie great (aside from the action, dialogues, special effects, etc). Whedon managed to not only balance the story perfectly between all the characters, but he also managed to get great performances from the actors as well. He even managed to get the Hulk right (I guess that the third time is a charm). This was by far the best movie ride I have been to this year!!

I know a lot of movies are missing from the list and some of them are probably very good, but I have not seen them yet... Such as: Djengo Unchained, Cloud Atlas, Life of Pie, Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln.
Maybe, once I see them I'll update the list...